


After the Devil is Gone

by Ironlawyer



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Post-Secret Empire (Marvel), Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:07:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22296802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironlawyer/pseuds/Ironlawyer
Summary: When Steve leaves to travel the country on his bike, Tony comes with him. But Steve is not ready to face those particular demons yet.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 25
Kudos: 71
Collections: You Gave Me A Stocking 2019





	After the Devil is Gone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kiyaar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyaar/gifts).



Steve claims he doesn’t remember much. Tony claims the same. There's a halting awkwardness to the conversation that says they both know they’re lying, but neither probes the other deeper, content to let those demons rest.

It’s been two weeks and Steve’s dreams are vivid. His voice issuing execution orders, hailing hydra. Watching the obliteration of Las Vagas. Feeling Tony’s body splayed beneath his.

Tony won’t leave. He glued himself to Steve’s side the moment he returned and now Steve can hardly take a piss without Tony following him. Steve’s very own black dog, the constant reminder of his crimes stuck with him like a scar.

‘I’m leaving,’ Steve tells him. He’s standing in the garage looking at his bike for the first time since his return and it feels like salvation, untouched by hydra hands.

‘Where to?’ Tony asks.

‘I don’t know. I don’t care. Anywhere but here.’ _Anywhere but near you,_ but he can’t bring himself to say it.

Tony hops on the back of the bike and wraps his arms around Steve’s waist with a stiff defiance, like the mere touch proves they can still be friends.

Steve, in all his cowardice, doesn’t question it, or ask him to back off. He starts the bike, takes the fastest rout to the highway and uses his shield like an illicit beacon of authority to break the speed limit without question. He can’t hear Tony, can’t feel Tony, just the wind and the road and the burning of bile in his throat.

They don’t stop until the fuel tank is running on empty. Steve isn’t even sure where they are, he’s been following his instincts for a few hundred miles, not the road signs. They pull up at a gas station attached to a diner so old fashioned it looks like it hasn’t been renovated since Steve’s youth.

Tony hops off, removes his helmet and stretches, catlike and with a faux casualness that make Steve’s skin crawl with the vision of Tony stretched out naked before the monster that inhabited Steve’s body.

‘You coming or what?’ Tony calls over his shoulder.

Steve follows him.

\--

They sit in affected companionship over dried out cheeseburgers and soggy, day old fries.

Tony calls it heavenly, says every meal is like the best he’s ever tasted since he got a body back. In reality, Tony takes two bites and plays with the food like he’s seeing something enchanting in the ketchup swirls. 

They stay, but say little to each other until the owner conspicuously clears the table of their unfinished food and comments on the lateness of the hour.

\--

Steve jumps back on the bike and part of him wants to drive off and leave Tony here. He waits though, watches Tony stand there like he’s waiting for something, and wonders what Tony wants from him.

‘Are you coming?’

‘Where are we going, Steve?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘I suppose not. Probably the why is more important.’

‘The why?’ Steve laughs. He’s cracking with a familiar fury that energises him. He jumps from the bike and hardly notices as it hits the asphalt. ‘You want me to tell you _why_? Why are we here right now? Why did any of this happen? Why me? Why you? I’m not God, Tony. I don’t have your fucking answers.’

Tony is calm, unmoved and his placidity stirs the hazy memories Steve wants to shut away forever.

‘I wasn’t asking for all the answers, Steve. I just want to know why you’re running away. No one blames you.’

‘I blame me!’ Steve toes the ground, digging his feet in, the urge to run, to fight, to just be moving when he feels like this is so engraved in his very being that his inaction feels explosive.

‘I know you do,’ Tony says. ‘But you shouldn’t.’

Steve begins to pace. The urge to hop back on the bike and drive away from Tony as far as he can is almost overpowering, but he can’t walk away. Tony doesn’t get it. The gravity of what was done in Steve’s name. The things the world knows and this horrible secret between Tony and he.

Maybe the world doesn’t hate him and maybe Tony doesn’t either, but there’s a stain there that can never fade away completely.

‘Why are you here, Tony?’

‘Because you need me.’

‘Need you? Fuck your arrogance. I didn’t invite you. You’ve been trailing me around like a lost puppy. What do you even want from me? There’s nothing I can say to change what happened.’

‘I know. What happened happened. I don’t expect you to change it. I want my friend back. I don’t want to let that hydra asshole take more from me than he’s taken already.’

‘Well maybe it’s too late for that. Maybe I can’t be your friend anymore. Maybe I can’t look at you without wanting to be sick.’

Tony goes flat, his face suddenly lifeless, like his insides have been tipped out and he’s been left hollow inside. ‘Oh,’ he says, monotone. ‘Okay.’

There’s a motel across from the diner and Tony heads there now, walking away like he’s on autopilot.

Steve watches Tony go, then kicks his fallen bike, lowers himself to the floor and buries his head in his hands.

\--

Steve wakes to the early dawn sunlight. Tony is standing over him, nudging him with his foot.

‘I’ll leave you be soon. I just - - I need to ask. Was it true. Any of it?’

‘What?’ Steve rubs his tired eyes, staggers to his feet and tries to figure out what Tony means.

‘He said you loved me. Was it just another lie?’

Steve grits his teeth. He doesn’t let himself think of all the times he had wanted to say something, of the ways he had imagined it, or the memory of how it happened in reality. ‘It wasn’t a lie,’ he says and that's all he can manage.

‘But you don’t anymore.’ It’s so bland and certain that Steve wants to scream. He wants to know that Tony feels the pain of this as much as he does. But Tony doesn’t give it to him.

‘I don’t know,’ Steve says. ‘When I look at you now, I just see what he did to you. I’m so sorry, Tony. I’m so, so fucking sorry.’

‘Yeah,’ Tony says. ‘I’m sorry for what he did to you too.’

It makes Steve ache for what they have lost. In another life, maybe their love could have been the start of something, not the end of it.

‘I guess I fucked up following you out here.’ Tony reaches for the bike and uprights it. ‘Go find yourself, Cap. I’ll be around if you ever decide we can still be...’ he hesitates, and a barrage of emotions run across his face like he’s been plunged into a pool of them, ‘friends or something.’

He extends a hand and for a moment all Steve wants is to leave Tony standing there unacknowledged. He pushes down the image of himself touching Tony all over and goes to shake his hand, but Tony notices his hesitation and drops his before Steve can take it.

‘Well,’ says Tony, with a bitter smile, and there’s an audible quiver in his voice, ‘I’ll see you around, I guess. Goodbye, Cap.’ And Tony turns away, heading back to the motel, leaving Steve alone with his motorcycle.


End file.
